Can people without stereopsis become effective surgeons?

The authors conducted an experiment with 14 adult patients diagnosed with strabismus without stereopsis in childhood. The patients, all of whom underwent surgery in childhood, and 14 age-matched controls with normal stereopsis took a hand-eye coordination test using a surgical training device.

After viewing a demonstration of the task and undergoing 10 minutes of practice, subjects performed 10 timed trials. The mean of the best five scores for the strabismic patients was 82.5 seconds and ranged from 50.8 to 151.4 seconds. The best scores for controls ranged from 43.2 to 129 seconds and were a mean of 64.7 seconds, which was significantly faster than the strabismic group mean.

However, there was significant overlap between the groups, with some strabismic patients performing better than the control group mean. The authors concluded that despite the statistical difference between the study groups, their experience suggests that some individuals with poor stereopsis can perform specific surgical tasks quite well.